Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Nintendo Wii is shipping on March 9th. You can pre-order the highly anticipated new game for the Wii on Amazon.com for $49.99.

This is the 3rd installment in Nintendo’s popular Super Smash Bros. fighter franchise now set to debut on the Nintendo Wii.
In Super Smash Bros. Brawl for Wii you can play against registered friends or randomly selected opponents from anyplace in the world via a Nintendo Wi-Fi connection.
More details and game play video on Amazon.com.

In recent months, the PlayStation 3 versions of many multiplatform games have been released after their Xbox 360 counterparts–or canceled outright. Others, like Grand Theft Auto IV, have seen both versions delayed because, having optimized the game first on the 360, the developers encountered difficulties with the PS3 edition.

This week at the 2008 Game Developers Conference, a major studio laid bare the pitfalls of cross-platform development on the current crop of consoles–and talked about how it plans to deal with it in the future. In an expansive and informative lecture, Haden Blackman, project lead for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, discussed which platform the company’s “built from scratch” development team began work on in 2005.

“Multiplatform development was one of our biggest challenges,” he told the jam-packed hall in the basement of the Moscone Center. After George Lucas famously urged the studio to “go build that game” upon seeing the first test reels from TFU, they began work straight away on Xbox 360 dev kits in late summer 2005–because that was all the studio had.
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Speaking at an event for the Google Lunar X Prize on Thursday, Google co-founder Sergey Brin reiterated his company’s position on a Microsoft-Yahoo union, the Associated Press reported.

“The Internet has evolved from open standards, having a diversity of companies. And when you start to have companies that control the operating system, control the browsers, they really tie up the top Web sites, and can be used to manipulate stuff in various ways. I think that’s unnerving,” Brin said.

It’s the same argument Google used when the Microsoft bid for Yahoo was first unleashed.

In the letter from February 3 titled, “Yahoo and the future of the Internet,” David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer, said that Microsoft’s bid “raises troubling questions,” pointing to the company’s monopolistic past. Read more » »

T-Mobile USA said Thursday it’s testing a new Internet telephony service in Dallas and Seattle that will replace consumers’ wireline home phone service.

Subscribers will be able to connect any regular home telephone to a T-Mobile router that will send calls over the Internet much the same way as services like Vonage operate. The service costs $10 a month plus taxes and fees for unlimited domestic local and long distance calls. But customers also have to be signed up for a T-Mobile wireless service costing at least $39.99 a month. The required router, which also provides access to the Internet, costs $50 after rebates. T-Mobile said existing phone numbers can be ported over to its service.

The company had been rumored to be working on a voice over IP wireless router since this summer when it was discovered that the company had filed plans for the device with the Federal Communications Commission. Read more » »

By JOHN DUNBAR, AP

Internet users should be free to surf where they want and download what they please. But shouldn’t the owners of the networks that make the Internet possible also have rights?

That, in a nutshell, is the topic of debate at a special public meeting of the Federal Communications Commission at Harvard Law School on Monday.

Recent events involving Comcast Corp. and Verizon Wireless have raised questions about network owners interfering with customer traffic flow. The meeting also is expected to attract a rally on minority media ownership.

The session is the agency’s most serious public discussion to date of the principle of “network neutrality.” That is the idea that all Internet traffic should be treated equally. Read more » »

John Shannon, chairman of NASA’s Mission Management Team and the man responsible for the conduct of space shuttle missions, was named manager of the shuttle program today, replacing N. Wayne Hale, a veteran ascent-entry flight director who helped steer NASA’s recovery from the 2003 Columbia disaster.

Shannon, a former flight director known for his self-assured, no-nonsense management style, takes over at a critical time for NASA as the agency attempts to finish construction of the international space station and fly a final 12 shuttle missions before retiring the winged orbiters in 2010.

“John Shannon is completely ready to take the reins in NASA’s most critical program,” Hale said in a NASA statement. “His leadership skills are well established, and the shuttle program will do well under his care.”
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A coalition of Stanford scientists has released the most detailed road map yet of human diversity, offering insight into the emergence and restless migration of the world’s populations.

Using the Stanford Human Genome Center to study genetic variations in almost 1,000 individuals from 51 populations, the team has completed the largest analysis to date of human diversity. The data is published in today’s issue of the journal Science.

The scientists discerned some of the great sweeps of human movement, like the early exodus out of Africa. They also found evidence of more recent micro-migrations by groups like American Indians, Silk Route traders and the Mongol invasion led by Genghis Khan.

“This is the definitive study to show variation within populations,” said Marcus Feldman, professor of biological sciences and a member of the team. Read more » »